KrishnaShripad
Then why are you indulging in this discussion without studying anything about it? Do you just blindly consume information from mainstream media without checking and verifying facts? I see you linked BBC and Vice in separate comments. Both are horrible in their coverage of India and deliberately hide/twist facts. If you don't even know who Nupur Sharma is then why are you defending @zoo_bear mentioned in this VICE article?
> How exactly was I supposed to know this when the tweet I was talking about was the one mentioned in the article you were so keen to dispute?
Exactly why I called it propaganda. The fact that the VICE article did not even mention Nupur Sharma or @zoo_bear's doctored clip says everything I need to know. Since you are not in India, let me inform you that the Nupur Sharma episode was the most talked about and debated National topic for over a month. Because the doctored clip that was shared by @zoo_bear resulted in 4 Hindus being beheaded by Islamic Terrorists. You can witness the results of @zoo_bear's propaganda here [1] (warning: NSFW, contains violence/gore)
Who is going to take responsibility for the 4 innocent lives that were lost because of Nupur Sharma's doctored clip being propagated? Once the full clip came out did this witch hunt on Hindus stop. But the threat hasn't subsided for Nupur Sharma yet. She is still under threat by Islamic radicals — from Saudi, Turkey, Pakistan to India — multiple Fatwas issued against her calling for her to be beheaded. Couple of these terrorists were even arrested [2].
Why did VICE not even mention this in their article? Because it wants to further its effing propaganda. That's all. At the cost of Hindu lives and promoting disharmony and enmity in India. It is not that VICE reporters are so dumb that they do not know what is happening in India. They chose to turn a blind eye. This is why I call it Western Media Propaganda. Omission of relevant details and only projecting portion of the story or publishing downright false stories is what the Western media indulges in and has perfected over the years when it comes to India.
And this is not just in India. It recently happened in Leicester, UK too where the Hindu community was targeted by Islamic radicals but the Western media reported it as Hindus being perpetrators of violence only to backtrack much later (after the Hindu community had to leave the town from repeated threats). With no apology rendered as usual. [3][4][5]
None of this is reported to you by the Western Media. Will probably be a footnote in your news ticker.
If someone tweeted something that had potential to cause violence, riots or religious tensions in Australia would you not want such tweets/posts taken down? Or would you be okay with a few beheadings here and a few bombings there because someone's Religious/Ideological sentiment got hurt? Any sane individual would want any sort of violent/inflammatory posts taken down to ensure there is no anarchy, violence and bloodshed on the streets. Government of India asking such accounts to be banned and such tweets to be taken down is not at all some major issue. In fact, Twitter has taken down such posts in various countries from time to time including in the United States (with exception being Politicians/Government officials). To not do so in India is only double standards at the very least and malicious intent at its worst.
[1]: https://twitter.com/AnimaSonkar/status/1541761659399614464
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVVU4v2P_tI
[3]: https://twitter.com/CharlotteFLit/status/1581075021191327744
[4]: https://twitter.com/CharlotteFLit/status/1573346485747740674
[5]: https://twitter.com/SarahLGates1/status/1575142320931864577
Because Muslims obviously are not traveling to India fearing religious persecution in ISLAMIC countries. That is... a big oxymoron.
The fast-tracking of Citizenship was for "persecuted religious minorities".
Muslims are welcome to come through Regular routes just like every other Citizen of the World (which also includes Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis, Christians from other countries not part of the 3 countries mentioned in the Act for instance). There are many Hindus who fled Sri Lanka and taken refugee status in India but haven't been brought under CAA as their status is still unclear (i.e. if they want to go back to Sri Lanka or not as the persecution was not of religious nature). The CAA was enacted specifically for minority religious persecution. How can you link that with regular Immigration which continues unabated? These refugees are languishing without Citizenship for 40+ years. Have some sympathy for them.
It is exactly the same as Jews fleeing persecution. Did US not fast-track citizenship for such Jews? Precedent has already been set by the United States. Now will you condemn USA for the same? [1]
Let me quote from the Lautenberg Amendment and the discussion prior to that:
"C. Special Category Aliens Since 1989, legislators have pushed the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) for increased admissions of specific religious and ethnic groups, in particular Soviet Jews and Evangelicals, Czechs, and Poles. In doing so, they have created special preference categories for specific aliens. 34 In May of 1989, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (DNJ) proposed that Congress create a "rebuttable presumption of refugee status for Soviet Jews, Evangelical Christians and certain Southeast Asian nationals."
`The Lautenberg Amendment required the Executive branch to establish: one or more categories of aliens who are or were nationals and residents of the Soviet Union and who share common characteristics that identify them as targets of persecution in the Soviet Union on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion .... [One such category shall include] aliens who are ... nationals ... of the Soviet Union and who are Jews or Evangelical Christians.`
`President Bush signed the Lautenberg Amendment on November 21, 1989.41 The Amendment allows for a reduced admission standard for the particular groups and requires the eligible aliens to assert a fear of persecution and show a "credible basis for concern about the possibility of such persecution. 42`
[1]: https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
The Supreme Court only resolved the title issue. The Government on the other hand went out of the way to provide Muslim Party huge land to build a Mosque. Which was welcomed by Muslim Organizations except for Asaduddin Owaisi and few terror organizations like PFI/SDPI. There was no need for the Government to give land to Muslim Organizations to build a Mosque when the title dispute was between private parties. So yes, I applaud the Government for doing what it did.
> 5. Economy flourished: Agree with you that India's GDP and Ease of doing business is growing. But I don't know what are real changes that people started noticing on the ground. Highways are being built at record pace but they are charging Toll for most of the highways and those highways are built and operated by private companies.
Why shouldn't Toll be charged? I don't see any problem in this as the roads require continuous maintenance too. I don't see anything wrong in Public-Private Participation. Why shouldn't highways be built by private companies? The tender is issued by the Government of India. Paid for by the citizen's taxes. Which goes to the Private companies which employs millions of Indians. So the taxes I pay are indirectly coming back to me in various forms and infrastructure is being built simultaneously. I don't see what exactly is wrong here. Do you want the Government to build highways? I want minimum Governance. I don't want Government to involve in areas where private sector would do a much better job. I rather the Government outsource it to private sector which can do it quickly and efficiently than try to do everything and not succeed in anything. Most public sector companies directly controlled/managed by the Government is always loss making (with exception of ISRO). Look at what happened to Air India. I prefer if Government sells public sector companies to private enterprises and only focus on legislation, security and governance and not involve in building companies. The Government's role is not to build Companies.
> 4. Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act: I think this is also done only to act against muslims of India. I absolutely do not support Triple Talaq and I like that they ended it but I don't think the intension is to protect women rights. Even current PM Modi has left his own wife without giving her a divorce. [4]
Modi leaving his own wife was not to get into relations with another woman. Nor was it to not provide alimony. Modi left his wife as he was forced into the engagement when he was a child (teenager) against his wishes (as it was tradition/custom during those days to do child marriage — a custom which he refused to follow and accept). He wanted to live the life of an ascetic so he ran away from home and reached the Himalayas to study under a Sage and become a monk. The Sage instead refused to teach and induct him into the Sanyasi order and told him to enter politics as that is where his destiny lies.
Modi and his wife have an understanding between them. If his wife was upset, she could have moved the court anytime. She hasn't. In fact she supports him by attending all his rallies in Gujarat.
I, for one, applaud Modi for not consummating his child marriage (he was engaged at tender age of 13 years). This is a very difficult thing to do. Especially in that sort of orthodox society and during those times (this is 1960s rural India). This is nothing but progressive thought.
Comparing this to instant triple-talaq is an insult IMHO. Triple-talaq is a disrespect to the woman involved. It is not done out of agreement but pure misuse of Islamic Sharia Law.
> 3. Citizenship Amendment Act: The way I see it, it's done only to act against muslims of India. They excluded only muslims from the list and included all other religions. There are conflicting statements from the ministers of Indian Government where Home Minister of India even seems to be indirectly threatening Muslims [2] [3]
No. This sort of Act was implemented by the United States too. When it gave fast-track citizenship to Jewish migrants fleeing Nazi Germany. They fled fearing persecution and rightly so. They were granted fast-track Citizenship rightly so. So why then should Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis fleeing Islamic Nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh fearing Religious Persecution not be granted fast-track Citizenship? Did the Government of India bar regular Citizenship to Muslims from neighboring countries? No it did not. Even now Muslims from neighboring countries are taking citizenship through normal route.
The articles you linked don't say anything about "threatening Muslims". [2] is about not linking NRC with CAA. NRC is different Bill altogether that hasn't even been drafted, let alone passed in the parliament. NRC is register of Citizens just like every Democratic Country keeps a register of its Citizens to differentiate between legal citizens and illegal aliens so as to provide Government subsidies and services only to legal citizens. The NRC on a State level is only implemented in Assam till now. Assam because of mass illegal migration that has been going on from Bangladesh to India. In neither of the links you provided has the Government threatened Muslims. Illegal aliens will be deported however. This is not a new issue but a long standing demand of majority of Indians from the past 4 decades (ever since the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971). You can check any opinion poll that was conducted regarding this issue and you will get at least 95% of the poll responding with a yes to introducing NRC. However, CAA has no connection to NRC whatsoever.
> 2. Implementing GST (Goods and Service Tax): Again I like that government made a strong decision and completed a long pending issue. However, I see the GST has also caused tax rate to be increased a lot on most of the items. There are many different tax rates and businesses has to file a lot more reports on monthly/yearly basis. For example VAT on software products used to be 5% but now GST on software products is 18%. Similarly now people have to pay GST on many essentials and food items. [1]
That is again wrong. The earlier VAT and Service Tax regime had a tax-on-tax issue which doesn't exist in GST. Only VAT had input tax credits which could be redeemed. Service Tax did not. The rest 10 other taxes also did not have input tax credits facility. This facility was only provided under GST. Thereby the net product value actually dropped. The compounding tax issue is something that can only be explained by an example.
In earlier regime, if I had a 10$ raw product (say I manufacture plastic pellets), the 12 taxes together would have been say 5%. That would be 10.5$ in total. Now if I purchase the raw material to create plastic bottles. The cost of manufacturing plastic bottles is 10$. Now the total cost would be 10+10.5 = 20.5$. Adding 5% tax on that, it would be: 21.0125$. Which is what the end consumer would pay.
Now let us take case of GST. It would be 10$ + 18% = 11.8$. However, that extra 1.8$ would come back to me as Input Tax Credits. So effectively I have purchased only for 10$. Now I manufacture the product for 10$. The total cost of the product would then be: 10$ + (10$ + 18% * 10$) = 21.8$ (notice that there is no compounding of tax like in previous regime). In this case, my output tax liability would still be 1.8$ only. However, I pay 0$ in tax as I have 1.8$ as credits from my previous purchase which I can utilize to reduce my output tax liability. So the total cost of the product would then be: 21.8$ with me effectively paying 0 tax as a seller. This is a brilliant taxation scheme. In fact, you can not just club in raw material purchases but also any business expenses and bring your tax liability to negative and request a refund from the Tax department. It is called as "cascading tax effect" which GST removes completely. I think you haven't understood how important GST is and you aren't taking advantage of what GST provides if you are only taxing your software product but not claiming Input Tax Credits for your business expenses. Read more about "cascading tax effect" here [4]
> 1. Abrogation of Article 370: Honestly I like that government made a strong decision and completed a long pending issue but I don't see how it can improve peace in the region or how it can stop the attacks or how it impacts life of any common citizen.
That will happen in due course. Already seeing major improvements in Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. Don't forget that the State is not just Kashmir. It also includes Jammu and Ladakh which actually form the major part of the State. However since Ladakh was bifurcated into its own Union Territory, it now gets special attention as it was the most neglected region before the Abrogation happened. And it will take time to bring everything back to normalcy. The spate of Terror attacks has definitely reduced a lot but now there is targeted killings of Kashmiri Hindus. That will also die down slowly as the Indian Army eliminates Terror groups and Terror sympathizers.
[1]: https://www.pmcares.gov.in/assets/donation/pdf/Trust_Deed.pd... [2]: https://www.pmcares.gov.in/en/web/page/about_us. [3]: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/right-and-wrong/we... [4]: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/in/resources/gst-center/cascad...
Responding to 8.2 PM CARES Fund:
> The total amount of funds donated and the names of donors have not been publicly disclosed, and the fund is privately audited
False. It has been disclosed. For both years (2019-20 and 2020-21).
1. 2019-20: https://www.pmcares.gov.in/assets/donation/pdf/Audited%20Sta... 2. 2020-21: https://www.pmcares.gov.in/assets/donation/pdf/Audited_State...
> The Government of India had initially claimed that the fund is a private fund, and denied that the PM CARES Fund is a public fund for the purposes of transparency laws such as the Right to Information Act 2005, even though the Fund uses government infrastructure and the national emblem of the Government of India
This is fake news spread by NDTV. The Government did not say anywhere that it was a private fund. This was deliberate misinterpretation of Clause 5.3 of the Trust Deed [1] by NDTV. It was registered as a "Public Charitable Trust" [2]
Yes it does not come under RTI just like the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund which was setup by the Congress Party but was not even registered.
The Fund using Government infrastructure or National Emblem of GoI has no bearing on it to being included under RTI. Even the earlier Prime Minister's National Relief Fund, which was unregistered entity, carried the National Emblem and used Government infrastructure and was not under RTI. So why was no issue raised on that? The PM CARES Fund is not an institution that is established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. And the funds are not used for day-to-day functioning of the Government of India. Hence, it cannot come under RTI. Now would it be good if the Government brought it under RTI? Yes, it would be good as it would quell all doubts regarding the fund. Can it be forced to bring it under RTI? No it cannot be. There is already precedent set by Prime Minister's National Relief Fund which functioned for 70 years as an unregistered entity with no audits being carried out by the CAG. At least the PM CARES fund is registered and goes through scrutiny by independent auditors from a panel suggested by the CAG. I would definitely vote for more transparency in the fund, but I wouldn't be shocked/surprised if this petition was struck down by the Courts.
---------------------------
> 8.1 Rafale Scam: The supreme court of India headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi gave clean chit to government without requiring any investigation. Government recommended the same judge for Rajya Sabha right after his retirement from the court. I cant say how its morally/ethically right for a judge to accept post-retirement benefit from government and how you can guarantee that the decisions from that judge were unbiased. [6] [7]
Yes you can question the ethics/morality of this. But this is not the first time such a thing has been done. CJIs/Judges taking up jobs in the Government (or even joining Political Parties) post-retirement is not new. And in my opinion it should be avoided to safeguard sanctity of institutions s/he was part of. But you cannot restrict a private citizen from exercising his fundamental rights. The Judge, after retirement, is a private citizen who has all the Rights to do as he pleases. Even if that means joining a Political Party.
However, this cannot be the basis for questioning a judgement based on facts. You are not just insinuating that the CJI acted with bias but also the other 2 Justices of the Supreme Court of India to not have exercised their independent judgement but were coerced by the Government of India. Don't forget that it wasn't Ranjan Gogoi alone but 2 other Justices who sat on the bench. It was decided by all 3 of them. It was unanimous verdict. Not a tie breaker where the CJI had to involve.
The Chief Justice of India or any Court of Law is not duty bound to conduct/direct conducting of investigations in an "alleged" scam without prima facie evidence. In fact, it is the duty of the petitioner to produce evidence "after" conducting investigations "prior" to submitting the petition. Is it the job of the Court to order investigative agencies to investigate random petitions, with no prima facie evidence, filed by petitioners? Can I make a wild accusation against the Government of India, move a Public Interest Litigation in the Supreme Court and expect the Court to direct investigative agencies to investigate the Government just to satisfy my wishes? Then I can easily get 1000s of petitions filed with frivolous accusations and turn the Court and the Government into a circus show. You are expecting too much from the Court. The Court only orders investigations if it finds prima-facie evidence that there is some malpractice or illegality. It could not find any in this case.
Responding to 8.3:
> In response, the BJP government has amended the FCRA Act itself, and exempted from scrutiny all foreign funding to parties retrospectively from 1976
This is partly true and some of the wording is incorrect (and facts are misinterpreted). Firstly, the article is written by Pavan K Varma who is a Politician from an Opposition Party (and was recently removed from the party). Not saying that it somehow invalidates his points. Just that there can be vested interests in this as it is his opinion.
The fact is that the Congress Government had already implemented this in 2010 (in a previous amendment to the act). The current BJP Government shifted the year from 2010 further back to 1976. Even if the current BJP Government hadn't amended it, it wouldn't have any issues itself as the case concerned those Governments pre-2014 as per the Court order (and would have scrutinized the previous BJP Government of the 90s headed by different individuals, all of whom are not even in power today). The current BJP Government probably did it to not want to waste Government resources and time on checking every single donation received from 1976 onwards for all parties. This is just my guess. An explanation of this in the Supreme Court will definitely be provided by the Government. We can only wait for that explanation. But even then, I'll try to answer with my limited understanding of the matter.
Pavan K Varma seems to have misunderstood the amendment. The amendment declared what is considered a "foreign source". The technicality is that of having received "foreign contributions" and it being violation of FCRA act. That part I agree with. What I disagree with is that it can now no longer be "scrutinized". That is patently false. It can be scrutinized but cannot be called "illegal". Now is this ethical/correct thing to do? Absolutely not. I suspect all the Political parties arrived at an understanding to not allow skeletons of the past to tumble out in public domain and collectively agreed to allow this amendment to pass. It is not mere coincidence that the Government passed this Amendment without discussion amidst din in the Parliament orchestrated by the Opposition benches. It did so fully in collusion with Opposition parties as well (as they knew what was in the amendment and did not want to discuss it in public domain). This should not have been done this way. It would have been better if there was a discussion held, the political parties accepted their faults of the past and declared to the Nation that they'll rectify it going forward. But it wasn't done because the Opposition has its own skeletons to hide and hence is weak. The ruling dispensation has its own skeletons to hide but is not willing to go through them as it has power and can do whatever it likes. Which is why I stressed on having a strong opposition in my final point in my previous reply. This sort of constructive opposition is needed so that the Government is put in the dock and truth comes out. But we have such a weak opposition (primarily cos it has its own horrid past) that it targets the Government only on those points where it knows it is bound to lose.
Anyways, this is where the Supreme Court comes in and now that the matter is before the Court, the Court will definitely take a call.
Now is it possible for Government to retrospectively fix this illegality? Yes it is possible. It has all the legislative powers to do this. Can Court strike down this amendment? Not possible at all as Judiciary cannot overstretch to that extent. It can only interpret the Law not amend it. It can strike down a Law if it has specific proof of the Law being used for malicious intent. I don't see that happening. As the Government can easily explain it away by saying that the Law was enacted without keeping in mind "so and so [insert excuse here]" and hence needed to be Amended. In fact, this sort of stuff happens quite regularly even for regular citizens like you and me, where stringent penalties (both civil and criminal) are sometimes retrospectively amended as the Law was enacted wrongly to begin with (happened in GST amendments so many times I lost count). In my case specifically (since I am an exporter), the Government, through RBI, decided to push the date for regularization of Bank Realization Certificates indefinitely (even though it is against FEMA regulations) to facilitate exports which were badly affected during COVID crisis. Another one is forgiving/waiving of farmer loans. It is literally making something illegal legal. Another good example is retrospectively amending the imposition of a minimum alternative tax on foreign companies so that FDI inflows are not affected. Not all retrospective amendments are "bad" per se. Sometimes the Law is just too strict to be able to do anything meaningful with the Law requiring such retrospective amendments as such Laws were enacted at a time where such issues were not envisioned to occur. The only time retrospective amendment was negatively scrutinized was during the Vodafone case where Vodafone dragged Indian Government to the International Court of Arbitration, Hague with the Indian Government losing the case.
> While the common man has to declare every cent of their income, political parties are allowed to take huge sum of money without disclosing any details
This is wrong. Political parties are 100% exempt from paying taxes on donations. However, they are not given relief from disclosing details of the donations. In fact, the Political parties are duty bound to declare every single paisa they get. Any political party as per Section 13A is required to furnish return of income under Section 139(4B) if its income exceeds maximum amount not chargeable to tax (limit is computed before taking into consideration Section 13A exemption). Tax slab applicable for political parties is same as the one applicable to normal resident individual. It is the responsibility of CEO of the political party to file the return of income and also to sign and verify the same.
The bone of contention really is that Electoral Bonds introduces anonymous electronic donations. But that was the case before as well. Except it was in hard cash and not electronic cash. And hard cash = black money. Electoral Bonds on the other hand can only be purchased through check or demand draft with full KYC. So even though the payee is not necessary to be declared (as donors would like to protect their affiliation), the amount itself is not black money at the very least as it has to now only be paid through Cheque/Demand Draft and not Cash. Now the question is, should the payee details be declared? What if I donated to Congress today and some despot/tyrant takes over India tomorrow and gets a list of all donors who donated to Congress so as to kill them? Do I want my political affiliation to be declared publicly? This is a question of privacy of an individual/corporate entity and not of legality. What if me donating to BJP leads to some mob deciding to cancel me for my political affiliation? Isn't that what happened in US where US Companies were forced to shut down their donations to a certain political party by the mob because it did not align with mob interests else be cancelled for supporting such party? This directly affects my Freedom of Expression. If my voting preference must be kept private and anonymous, why should my Electoral donations be forced to be made public? Wouldn't that reveal my voting preference? How ethical is that?
I'll attempt it: let us take the Rafale Deal accusations that was leveled against the Government of India by the Opposition Parties. They could not substantiate it with any evidence whatsoever except to claim that Modi and his Party, along with billionaire Ambani, minted billions of dollars from a defense deal which involved Government of India and the French Government in procurement of Rafale Jets (Dassault Aviation). The Opposition mounted an offensive right before the 2019 elections and even took the case to the Supreme Court of India. There, they could not substantiate any of their claims. And they took the case to the same court 3 times with various appeals. In the end, the Supreme Court got frustrated by the repeated petitions and threw out the case [2].
The reason being that the Government of India, for the first time ever, had inked the deal with the French Government directly instead of going through middlemen (which was the case with Bofors Scandal of the 90s and Augusta Westland scandal of the 2000s). Earlier Governments used middlemen to sign deals so that the monetary exchange happened through these middlemen who would give a kickback to the politicians involved in making the deal happen.
The current Government of India decided not to go through the middlemen route and instead inked a deal directly with the French Government. This obviously did not sit well with the Opposition as it lost a big source of corruption revenue (the Opposition was gunning for Lockheed Martin's F-16 (and subsequently Hybrid F-21 jet) or Eurofighter and wanted it done through middlemen). If Government had gone through this route, there would be huge kickback (to the tune of billions of dollars) that would go straight into the pockets of greedy politicians.
Now since the Government did not take that route, there was no scope for corruption anymore as everything had to be done in black and white (with the French Government having to pay the Indian Government directly which would be received by the Treasury and not some corrupt politician or middleman).
Yet the Opposition cried that there was corruption in the deal by picking clauses out of context (for example, the offset clause in the deal) or randomly accusing the Prime Minister of actually facilitating the deal on behalf of billionaire Anil Ambani. None of these accusations withstood the scrutiny of the Supreme Court of India [1]. But in 2019, it was the biggest election issue. Turned out to be a damp squib.
[1]: https://www.legalservicesindia.com/law/article/1120/9/SC-Dis...
[2]: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/cant-go-into-rafal...
Where is this explanation? There is not even one mention of Nupur Sharma in the Vice article. Quote from the article.
> the tweet was over 4 years old when he was arrested for it
Nice deflection. This is not the tweet I was talking about.
I was talking about this: https://www.opindia.com/2022/06/islamist-mobs-nupur-sharma-p...
and this https://www.opindia.com/2022/06/alt-news-mohammed-zubair-del...
> The Indian article[1] about the arrest doesn't make any claims about the tweet going viral or being responsible for the things the OP is claiming here.
Of course the Indian Authorities are going to charge him for the most heinous/offensive tweet. And they will choose the one that will stick when they prosecute him in a Court of Law. That does not mean what he did, did not lead to beheading of 4 innocent Hindus. This is well documented fact that the communal tension was result of him sharing a doctored clip that went viral.
> The Indian article[1] about the arrest doesn't make any claims about the tweet going viral or being responsible for the things the OP is claiming here
LMFAO from Indian Express of all the papers? The ones who falsely published a report that Indian Army had moved towards Delhi to do a coup on the previous Government of India? [1] and [2].
Please refer to better sources.
> A 2021 transparency report released by Twitter revealed that India was the single largest source of government takedown requests in the second half of 2020—accounting for 25 percent of the global volume
Ah yes. And we should take Twitter at its word. Twitter can also reveal exactly what those tweets were which the GoI wanted taken down. I bet at least half of them involve some fabrication (like The Wire BS that is currently being propagated) or something communal to stoke riots and unrest in India.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/indian-newspaper-slammed-for...
[2]: https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/upa-2-top-leaders-wa...
2. Implementing GST (Goods and Service Tax). Before we had 12 different taxes that we had to pay (including VAT). All of it was subsumed into 1 tax code bringing India on par with Democracies across the World which had 1 indirect taxation methodology. GST was delayed by 2 decades due to successive weak coalition Governments. This caused India to lag behind majorly. Sure there were multiple technical bottlenecks (with the system crashing multiple times when it was launched) but that has now largely been resolved and simplified.
3. Citizenship Amendment Act. This was passed to ensure that Refugees (from minority religions) who fled Religious persecution in neighboring Islamic Nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh were given fast-track Citizenship. Most of these refugees had landed in India in the 1970s after the Indo-Pakistan War (which involved US and the West supporting theocratic State of Pakistan while Soviet Union supported India). India won the War, breaking Pakistan into two parts, with one part liberated as Bangladesh. Before the War started, there was major Religious persecution of minorities in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) which resulted in genocide [1]. Estimated 2,000,000 people escaped persecution and landed in India seeking India's intervention. India did liberate Bangladesh but did not decide on the future of Refugees for the next 40+ years. Those Refugees were finally granted Citizenship on a fast track basis.
4. Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act. This Act (also called Triple Talaq Bill) was passed by the Indian Parliament to make "instant divorce/Talaq" a punishable offense thereby restoring the dignity of minority Muslim women (who used to be earlier divorced by their husbands over SMS/WhatsApp by just writing Talaq, Talaq, Talaq 3 times — called Talaq-e-Biddat).
5. Economy flourished: India's GDP shot up from being 10th largest in 2014 (when Modi came to power) to now 5th largest economy. Share in Global GDP rose from 2.6% to 3.2%. FDI inflows shot up from 2.1% to 6.7%. In combating Climate Change crisis, rose from 31st to 10th. Ease of doing business shot up from 142nd to 63rd place. People started noticing real change on the ground. Highways being built at record pace. Electrification close to 99% all over India.
6. Settling the Ayodhya Dispute, which happens to be the most important issue for Hindus.
7. Unified Payments Interface. One of the best technological implementations I have seen and is quite shocking that it was a Government initiative no less. I can transfer cash to anyone instantly by just knowing their UPI ID (which is similar to email ID). No need to share bank details. No need for waiting for a day or two for transfers to happen. No need to use credit/debit cards. Chances of fraud minimized big time.
8. Reducing/eliminating big scale corruption on National/Federal/Central level. India was rocked by multi-billion dollar corruption scandals for 70+ years. This is now thankfully a thing of the past. Corruption still exists in some pockets (and in some States as well) but it is largely reduced.
There are a lot more. But I have only listed a few which I am happy with. A mix of social + economic issues that were resolved.
There are other issues where the Government underperformed IMHO:
1. Passing the landmark Farm Act and then backtracking on it due to pressure from rich farmers and Khalistani Terror groups operating out of Canada. This set back India's farming sector by 2 decades. This reform was much awaited and would have propelled India's farm sector to great heights. But politics and propaganda won over common sense reforms. The only time I was extremely upset with the current Government.
2. Not tackling home grown terror organizations with an iron fist due to fear of being perceived as a "fascist party" by International Media and International Organizations. Lots of Islamic terror organizations were floated that worked without any fear (with many openly tying with ISIS, Al Qaeda etc) because the current Government chose not to act against them. Even when majority of the supporters pushed the Government to ban such organizations it seemed shaky and did not wish to act decisively. It ultimately had to once these organizations started talking about breaking India (by staging a "protest" — read it as riots and communal violence — in the "Chicken neck" region and cut off entire North-Eastern India from rest of the mainland) and the Anti-CAA riots broke out which resulted in communal clashes. Then the Government had to intervene and ban these Organizations. I wish it had done sooner. Innocent people would not have suffered.
3. Demonetization, as a concept, was a disaster. Though it propelled India as a whole to move towards online banking (see the point on UPI above), the core objective for bringing in Demonetization: reduction/elimination of black money, was not met.
4. Hasty implementation of Aadhaar without consultation with Privacy Experts and Tech professionals. In fact, this Government performed poorly when it came to Privacy issues and surveillance. It is trying to emulate both US and China in this aspect. Which I do not agree with or support.
5. Buying out elected representatives from Opposition Parties to form Government. This is one thing I hate about the current dispensation. Though this is not new and has been going on since India got Independence and became a Democracy, I expected this Government to not indulge in horse trading. As those coming into the Party do not necessarily have the same ideological inclinations, commitments or dedication as a ground-level Party worker. This party level corruption needs to end.
6. No strong Opposition. Currently, the Indian Opposition Parties are divided, with no strong leaders heading them. They are directionless and visionless. The oldest Party of India (the Indian National Congress) is headed by a buffoon who spends most of his time in Italy and only occasionally visits India when there is some contentious issue and then goes back to Italy to party. There is no serious contender to Modi right now. All the good leaders are gravitating to one party. And this is a bad thing IMHO. India definitely needs a strong Opposition to have the right checks and balance. But definitely not the jokers we have in the Opposition now.
An example: https://twitter.com/DaveScheidt/status/1578411434043580416
> I also know software devs who are extremely excited about AI art and GPT-3 but are outraged by Copilot.
The fear is not unwarranted though. I can clearly see AI replacing most jobs (not just in tech) but art, crafts, music and even science. There probably will be no field untouched by AI in this decade and completely replaced by next decade.
We have multiple extinction events for humanity lined up: Climate Change, Nuclear Apocalypse and now AI.
We will have to not just work towards reducing harm to the Planet, but also work towards stopping meaningless Wars and figuring out how to deal with unemployment and economic crisis that is looming on the horizon. The only ones to suffer in the end would be the "elites" (or will they be the first depending on how quickly Civilization goes towards Anarchy?).
Can't say for sure. But definitely gloomy days ahead.
I'll explain the context behind this because Vice (as is usual with Western media propaganda outlets) does not provide any details.
The "journalist" in question, who goes by the handle @zoo_bear, tweeted out a clip from a heated National TV debate between a ruling party spokesperson and another Islamic scholar. Some unsavory remarks were made by the Islamic scholar on the ruling party spokesperson's Religious beliefs (she is a Hindu). She retaliated in the TV debate with her own unsavory remarks on his Islamic beliefs.
Now this "journalist", instead of putting out the entire clip, decided to cut the clip to only show the spokesperson's remarks which went viral not just in India but across the World. She not only received beheading/death threats but was also forced to apologize, tender resignation from the Party and go into hiding. Then after that, 4 other Hindus (completely unconnected to this TV debate) were beheaded, by Islamic terrorists, as a "revenge" for what she said. Only later did the entire clip surface and things cooled down. But by then, the damage was done. Was any of this reported by Vice? Nope. This is the kind of propaganda that Western media outlets indulge in.
Now the Government of India wanted to take this out-of-context Tweet down (as well as suspend the "journalist"s account) as he continued to put out partial information just to keep the communal pot boiling.
India is a multi-cultural, multi-religious democracy with a billion+ people. Any riots that break out has potential to turn into communal clashes on a pan-India scale. The Government, unlike Western Governments, has extra responsibility to take care of the social fabric of the Nation apart from protecting the country from adversaries on our borders.
So the Government of India is perfectly justified in requesting take down. Twitter not taking it down is purely politically motivated. It is not like it hasn't taken down accounts/tweets at all. It has done so multiple times on behest of opposition party members.
Vice is part of the same Leftist Media cabal.
> The OP is a very strong BJP supporter (see comment history), but even so it's a weird take.
LMFAO no. It is mostly about Twitter censoring accounts that are pro-Hindu: https://twitter.com/aranganathan72/status/132892246447524659...
And the ban was done after Opposition Party supporting Bureaucrat (from the IPS cadre) threatened to get the account banned. Basically Twitter acted on behalf of the Opposition not the Ruling Party. You can read the full story here [1].
If Twitter is truly unbiased, it wouldn't be siding so openly with Opposition Parties in India.
Quoting the user (TrueIndology) who was banned:
`She asked me for my personal details. I refused to divulge those details. She then said "Your time is up". And boom. My account was suspended within 5 minutes. Twitter sent no mail. Gave no reason. Simply suspended my account`.
The Government of India has authority to regulate Law and pass Executive Orders to entities operating within the Country. The Opposition of India has no such powers. Yet Twitter defied the Government's Executive Orders but did not defy the Opposition Party Bureaucrat's diktat. That should tell you how openly biased Twitter is.
Anyways, being a "strong BJP supporter" is not a crime on HN I presume. Where propaganda thrives it is better to be a strong, vocal supporter. Even if all alone and in minority.
[1]: https://www.opindia.com/2020/11/twitter-suspends-trueindolog...
Let me put it this way: what you feel Meta is doing in the West, is what many in India (like me) feel Twitter is doing here. And the sentiment I see is mostly anti Meta and mostly pro Twitter here.
After all it is my perspective and I could be wrong (as I obviously don't have statistics to say if HN definitely has a Twitter bias or not). But I believe I have a right to express my opinion on what I feel is HN sentiment towards big tech censorship (which mostly circles around Meta but rarely around Twitter).
Facts state that the current Government enjoys sizeable vote share and that is purely for its policies and performance. And that definitely is the ground reality whether you like it or not. It won't change facts because you despise the Government for whatever beliefs you hold.
And i saw your earlier comments. Typical anti Government propaganda that I have come to expect on HN here. No wonder you guys aren't getting the votes needed to win elections.
As far as facts is concerned, the fact is this Government will get re-elected in 2024. No matter how much propaganda you wish to spread. It has little to no impact on the ground as people are fully aware of what is happening. We are not fools here.
> "Has little effects on facts"
Exactly. Prove your facts. The Wire has been caught with its pants down fabricating a big lie. It's not the first time either. We all remember Rafale deal. How Rahul Gandhi screamed on top of his lungs "Chowkidar chor hai". What happened to that? Why did the issue die down?
Has the Opposition ever taken any accusation it levelled against the Government or Modi to logical conclusion? Nope.
Lost in public debates, lost in elections, lost in Court and now losing even in Media propaganda as well. For how long will you keep blaming everyone else except yourselves for the electoral debacles? From EVM hacks to Rafale corruption and everything in between. None of these issues were taken to logical conclusions. Just wild accusations and then dropped just as easily.
If I could earn a dollar for every accusation the Opposition has levelled without taking it to resolution, I would be rich by now. Accusing is cheap. Anyone can accuse anyone of anything. Proving it is the hard part. And Opposition has failed miserably in proving any of their accusations. Even in the Court of Law.
What India needs is a serious Opposition that actually works for the people and has its ears to the ground. Sadly we do not have a good Opposition. Opposition is only thriving on propaganda and fly-by-night operations that involves making wild accusations without substantiating it. I remember one Opposition supporter talking about NRC draft (during Anti CAA protests - more like riots) when such a draft did not even exist nor was it tabled in the Parliament of India. This is the reason why Opposition doesn't get enough votes to come to power. It's not serious about anything.
Isn't that literally what Twitter does as well? Making exceptions for Politicians and Government Representatives? Or does HN's bias towards Twitter exempt it from any form of scrutiny?
But Twitter doing the same is perfectly fine right? I see the hypocrisy in HN when it comes to how it treats Meta vs how it treats Twitter.
Why not? Are journalists different from politicians that we should not hold them accountable? We know these journalists quite well and we know what their political leanings are. This is not the first time they have done this. Won't be the last either. So calling them out is not a wrong thing.
LMFAO. The only problem supporters of the ruling party in India (includes me) have with the ruling party in India is that it does literally nothing to curb dissent (or acts so late it is practically useless). The so called "Farmers Protests" (mostly carried out by rich farmers of Punjab, Haryana and UP backed by Khalistani Terror Organizations in Canada) ran for more than a year. They even blocked main roads and highways. For an entire year. So much so that Modi had to backtrack on the Progressive Farm Laws that had been enacted by the Parliament and set back India's Agriculture by 2 decades. So much for "curbing dissent".
Compare that to how quickly Trudeau crushed dissent, within weeks of it flaring up, by freezing bank accounts of protestors and censoring them. If Modi had done half of what Trudeau did (for both Anti-CAA protests and Farmer protests) he would have been labelled the "Progeny of Hitler" by the media cabal.
The Western Media propaganda has been in full swing for past 2 decades against not just the ruling party in India but also Modi. And it won't die down as long as there are people who will continue to keep spreading this propaganda.
As for the voters in India? The ruling party will come back with even bigger majority in 2024.
The West, their media cabal (both in and outside India) and their favorite Opposition Party (The Indian National Congress) are so disconnected from reality and totally missing the real pulse of the people on ground. Only to their own folly.
Well you have your answer already: the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. If anything, it was a grand scale experiment to see how well human beings can listen to and obey Orders. How well human beings can adhere to lockdowns and mask mandates and how well they will work. How well the Government and so called "Experts" will handle the grave situation. To weigh pros and cons of dying due to the virus vs dying due to starvation and poverty.
The result is that everyone fucked up. Big time. We are extremely lucky that the virus had a low fatality rate and was not like the black plague which wiped out 60% of Europe's population.
None of these "Executive Orders" were through Consensus or Vote. We were forced to "trust" the Government and the "Experts" to do the right thing. And how many of us know anything about viruses or developing vaccines to make any sort of reasonable judgement anyways? A tiny percentage of the entire populace. We had no choice really.
Irrespective of how bad they fucked up — from flip-flopping on mask mandates to imposing extremely harsh lockdowns that caused economic distress and induced the recession we are in now — not to discount the crazy Wars going on in the World especially after a devastating pandemic. We have proven ourselves to be the most inept "superficially intelligent" species which is due for another genetic evolution — the last one being the Neanderthal extinction some 40,000 years ago [1].
We let the elites and experts take decisions on our behalf and we saw how it fucked everything up. This is going to be no different. When push comes to shove, some old buffoons, holding desperately on to power, in their 70s, 80s or 90s, with little to no cognitive abilities, will be deciding the fate of approximately 8 billion people. To support these buffoons will be those greedy good-for-nothing companies that will be looking at how best to profit from the situation... all while being on the verge of extinction.
We are royally screwed. There is no denying that. If some highly evolved super-intelligent species of the future writes a history on Homo Sapiens, it would definitely be that we were the only species to have "fought amongst each other, stuttering and stammering our way to extinction, taking with us a perfectly habitable planet".
Both are not borne out of facts but malicious propaganda.
"It's to the point that many from India won't admit to the caste they're in."
You are implying this in a negative manner. The reason people don't talk about caste is because we have progressed a lot in the past century. No one gives a damn about caste in their day-to-day life. It only props up in political rallies where talking about caste based discrimination is a precursor to lay the stage for either increased reservation or introducing new reservation in the already prevalent discriminatory quota system that exists in India (which should have been done away with in 10 years after our Independence as envisaged by Ambedkar himself but nevertheless continues to exist 70+ years after Independence corroding our society further).
> And before you try to claim otherwise, don't bother
I don't have to. You are a propagandist. I stand by that.
But the first ones to fight against this reform would be the "lower caste" strata of the population. Who would give up freebies, Government jobs as well as in education Prestigious Universities where you can guaranteed it based on your birth caste and not on merit? No one would. If I am born in any of the "lower caste" groups I can easily get a Government job, free/subsidized education in any Prestigious University irrespective of my scores/performance. Now there is talk of reservation/quotas in land distribution as well (comments by a politician in a recent speech to his base). Idea is that if you want to purchase land some section of the land is reserved if you belong to a particular caste (and will probably be available for lower than market rate as well). However ridiculous it might sound.
Affirmative Action in US doesn't have a quota system or reservation. It instead focuses on equal opportunity (no denial of opportunity to anyone based on their race/creed/color/sex/religion etc). This is different from India's Caste based reservation system where you are guaranteed of a job/education if you belong to lower caste. Doesn't matter if you are merited or not. Doesn't matter if you are rich or not. Even seats in the Parliament of India have reservations/quotas for lower castes.
It is ridiculous to talk about dismantling caste system while in the same breath prop up structures that actively promotes this same caste system on the Government level. And the Politicians do not want to dismantle said system because it helps with their vote bank.
What? At this point I think you are troll account. You have already made wild and ridiculous statements like caste system being a form of "systemic slavery" in India. Now you are saying that only a "small percentage" of Indians speak English? Are you serious mate? English is the official language of India for literally everything. From giving exams to Government communications.
> Only a small percentage of Indians speak English and most statistics on it are heavily inflated
Where is the data for this?
> It's not Singapore or even close to it in English proficency trying to claim it is, is a lie.
And where do you get this data from?
Just goes to show how bias clouds reason and logic. Propaganda in full swing!
Thank you for speaking facts.
Direct Democracy doesn't work if the population is too big. Anything greater than a few thousand people you will need Representative Democracy.
So when one says "True Democracy" it invariably points to Representative Democracy with a Multi-Party system. Direct Democracy is a dead idea from the get go.
Where exactly is freedoms limited for non Hindus? Can you name some of these freedoms that have been limited?